There is no programmatic intention in what unfolds as sound in this piece: any or no relationship to the title and the sounding music is forged at the discretion of the composer, performer and listener. Despite this statement, an unfolding of material manifests through contrasting sections of music to hopefully provide the listener with a compelling experience even without programmatic intent. It is the interplay between and within these sections that is the narrative content of the composition.
There are several iterations of the piece titled each changing, first, each changing #1, a solo for Eb clarinet; second, two solos for Bb clarinet, each changing #2 and #3; each changing #4, a duo for two Bb clarinets; each changing #5, a sextet for clarinet in Bb, guitar and distanced string quartet, and finally, each changing#6, another sextet, this time for clarinet in Eb, violin, violoncello, double bass, harp and percussion (1-player) who also operates a portable playback device quietly sounding out an intermittent series of harpsichord release samples throughout the composition. All these pieces, except for the solo work, are polytemporal compositions.
The material constituting the clarinet writing in all cases originates from, among other sources, self-borrowed and enhanced materials from the violin part in always searching for home (2020), a composition that immediately preceded this and where those materials were themselves self-borrowed and transformed from the violin 1 part of the 2016 string quartet, observation 5. In addition, a bar of material self-borrowed from liquid music (2017) for Bb clarinet is much expanded and developed in these pieces.
I am always fascinated by how the combination of different musical materials, particularly in polytemporal performance formats, affects how those materials interact together in time, changing the vertical, harmonic and rhythmic relationships of the combined elements to destabilise how we hear the original unchanged material when presented in those differing contexts.
The each changing series of pieces are dedicated to my friend and colleague, the clarinettist and composer Raymond Brien.
